


Would You Please Explain about the Fifty Ways?

by orphan_account



Category: due South
Genre: Backstory, Episode Related, Multi, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2013-02-27
Packaged: 2017-12-03 19:00:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray makes a new plan, Stan.  Not tagged with other characters because, while it's about Ray and Stella (and Ray's parents and Stella's parents) and Ray and Fraser, there's really no dialogue as such.  The episode to which it is related is "Bounty Hunter."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Would You Please Explain about the Fifty Ways?

He was in the auto parts store with his dad when he first heard the song. He might not have even noticed it, except that it had his name in it. It was the only time he’d ever thought his first name was cool, and even in the song it was “Stan” which his parents refused to call him rather than “Stanley” which was all they ever called him unless his mom was having one of her “Stanley Raymond Kowalski” freakouts. At least the kids at school, and even some of the teachers, and most definitely Stella…they were all on the “Ray” bandwagon. His parents did not really appreciate his rejection of the name they had chosen for him. Ray tried to be reasonable about that. He liked some of the other stuff they gave him. His eyes, for example, which Stella always had something nice to say about. The dental work that gave him what he liked to think was a grin somewhere between wolf and fox. A place to live. He and Dad even had the Goat, the reason they were at Pep Boys in the first place. Most kids did not get to rebuild hotrods with their dads. 

“Make a new plan, Stan,” the singer said. It sounded kind of cool. Except the song was about “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.” Ray wasn’t entirely sure what “lover” meant, at least in the song. He got the feeling that the singer was getting advice from a woman who had sex with him. Which made sense, as Paul Simon was an adult. Ray wasn’t having sex with anyone (yet) but he kinda considered Stella to be his lover, if the word meant something like “beloved.” He was pretty sure, a couple of years ago, when they did _Romeo and Juliet_ in class, they'd covered that definition. He’d also been pretty sure that the play was about him and Stella, what with the families hating each other, but by the time he first heard that song, he knew there wasn't any family hatred. His family’s and Stella’s weren’t rivals, because they didn’t even move in the same circles. Stella’s dad wasn’t trying to get a foreman job, and Ray’s dad wasn’t trying to dick Stella’s dad over on some business deal.

The few times their parents had met, at dancing competitions, they’d just talked about dancing and their favorite songs to dance to. And then it had been Stella’s dad and Ray’s mom (“Moonlight Serenade”) versus Stella’s mom and Ray’s dad (“Sing, Sing, Sing"). Ray's mom said something about the romantics versus the energetics and everyone laughed.

Maybe if Ray’s dad had been a union organizer Ray and Stella would’ve been more tragically mismatched. The point was, by the time he heard “make a new plan, Stan,” Ray figured he and Stella were lovers even if they didn’t have sex (yet). And he wasn’t about to try to find even one way to leave her, although sometimes he worried that maybe Stella was thinking she should ditch him. “Find a new fella, Stella.”

But from 1975 on, Ray would sometimes think “make a new plan, Stan” in the various tricky situations he got into. Like when his dad disowned him over his career choice. He’d honestly thought his dad would see the police as a good choice. Stella’s dad outright _encouraged_ Ray’s desire to join the police force. Stella’s dad also called him Ray.

Anyway, that led to that whole weird time when Stella was in law school away from Chicago and Ray sacked out in one of her parents’ spare rooms because his dad disowned him at the worst possible time for finding a roommate. At least that only lasted a month. It was weird to come home to a doorman covered with obstacle course mud or small arms training blowback. If Ray hadn’t been so stubborn, he might’ve he admitted that his dad had a point about stink and police work, even if Ray hadn't even started to deal with criminal lowlifes yet.

But Ray was stubborn and he wasn’t about to agree with him about anything, even though his disagreements with his dad were now conducted in a vacuum. But that was okay, because “make a new plan, Stan.”

Which he also had to come up with when, after such a long time, more than half their lives, really, Stella…well, she wasn’t ready to find a _new_ fella, but she sure as hell didn’t want Ray anymore. And Ray didn’t want her…not exactly. He wanted her, but the old Stella, not the new one who was brittle and angry. It took him a long time to realize that the old Stella was gone forever, that what he really needed to do was admit that and move on. "Make a new plan, Stan."

He didn’t realize just how much he’d changed, though, until a few weeks after the new plan involved being Ray Vecchio and working with the Mountie. And seeing that Stella was ready for a new fella. Ray was kinda glad he’d turned out to be a scum sucking degenerate swindler, especially since for about five minutes it had looked like maybe Stella would take Ray back. But then he thought that it kinda sucked for Stella, getting a new boyfriend who turned out to be a crook, and also that she was right that if anything sexual or even romantic happened between her and Ray it would be a temporary relapse. None of the underlying problems would be fixed, and he’d just know it’d be “make a new plan, Stan” all over again.

But after he started feeling some kind of strange things about Fraser, especially for the five minutes that Janet and her kids were looking like they’d make a nice family Christmas card with Fraser in the middle. And when that hadn’t worked out for Fraser, he was kinda glad. But then he thought it kinda sucked for Fraser, meeting a nice woman he seemed to like, only it turned out her ex-husband was a bit less “ex” than would work out in time for Christmas cards. 

Seeing that whole awkward last exchange between Fraser and Janet made Ray feel bad, and it was the kind of bad he recognized, because while he now realized he was kind of jealous of her, he felt even worse for Fraser. Which, people said, when you felt bad for someone not getting something they wanted even if getting it would’ve hurt you yourself…well, some people said that meant you cared about that person’s happiness more than your own. And that meant you loved them.

And maybe Fraser didn’t love Ray, at least not the way Ray was starting to think he himself loved Fraser, so Ray just put his arm over Fraser and took him out for burgers. Ray didn’t say it out loud, not then anyway, but he found himself thinking “find a new way, Ray.” He figured he probably would eventually. He was getting to be an old hand at that.

**Author's Note:**

> The last time I remember hearing a song in an auto parts store with my parents (both of them) it was "I Touch Myself" by the Divinyls. That was really...not even close to the worst thing that happened that day.


End file.
